How to use the “comments” function in google docs to drive collaboration and growth in your business

Many businesses use the comments function in Google Docs (docs/slides/sheets) to help drive collaboration and growth to great affect.

_{With pretty minimal effort you can achieve the same outcomes in your business so based on my first-hand (and observed experience), I’ve outlined four ways you can use the comments feature to drive collaborating and growth in your business.}

Note: For the purpose of this post I’m talking about adding comments and more importantly, assigning comments to specific people in your business.

Feedback and suggestions

Using comments to collect feedback and suggestions from team members on various aspects of the business can have a major impact on both employees and customers.

Research that suggests that involving employees in decision-making processes, such as through commenting on various aspects of the business strategy, marketing plan, or new product roadmap, can lead to increased employee engagement and improved business performance.

A study by the Harvard Business Review found that companies with engaged employees outperformed those without by up to 202%. Additionally, a survey by Forbes found that companies with highly engaged employees experienced higher levels of productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

Decision making

Comments can be used as a tool for both discussion and decision making. Tagged team members can provide their thoughts and opinions on shared discussion documents, and then the relevant party can use this information to make informed decisions.

A study by McKinsey & Company found that companies with the fastest decision-making processes were able to achieve growth rates that were 5% to 6% higher than their competitors.

Additionally, a survey by Harvard Business Review found that organisations that were able to make decisions quickly were better able to respond to market changes and opportunities, leading to improved overall performance.

Using comments is a great way to accelerate discussion and to supercharge it further, allow teams members to use an app like Briefmatic to help view and prioritise key comments assigned specifically to them to increase visibility and remove bottlenecks.

Task assignment

Comments can also be used to assign tasks to team members. By adding comments to specific parts of a document, anyone can assign tasks to specific team members and track their progress.

Task delegation can help improve a businesses growth by enabling leaders to focus on high-level strategic tasks, while delegating day-to-day tasks to others. Additionally, delegation can help build a more agile and adaptive team, as team members are given more responsibilities and opportunities to develop new skills and take on new challenges. This can lead to increased motivation and engagement, and help the business attract and retain top talent.

Delegation also enables businesses to scale their operations more effectively, as team members are empowered to take on additional tasks and responsibilities as the business grows.

Collaboration

Google Docs’ real-time collaboration feature makes it easy for multiple team members to work on a document simultaneously, and the comments function allows for seamless communication and collaboration during the process. This is without question the most valuable element, particularly for businesses with distributed teams or a strong hybrid working culture.

Deep collaboration can help improve a businesses growth by enabling teams to work together effectively and efficiently to achieve common goals. Additionally, deep collaboration can foster a culture of trust and transparency, where team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. This can help eliminate silos, improve communication, and facilitate more effective problem-solving and decision-making.

In short, deep collaboration can help businesses overcome challenges, drive innovation, and achieve sustainable growth by unlocking the full potential of their teams.

By utilising the comments function in Google Docs, businesses can improve communication, foster collaboration, and make more informed decisions, which can ultimately drive growth. As these businesses leverage features like google comments to become more collaborative, augmenting google docs with a tool like Briefmatic will help ensure team members can view and prioritise all their action items across all their productivity and collaboration tools.

As we all know, when your resources are constrained, but your growth isn’t, leveraging features like google comments plus Briefmatic to gain even a slight advantage can be the difference between success and failure.

So why not make a point today to use google comments to tag someone in a comment today and better yet, stop by Briefmatic and see if might help your business improve its collaboration, productivity and decision making.